Alexander Mashkevich, the co-founder of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation
(ENRC), has hit back at former directors of the controversial miner who
branded the company "more Soviet than City".

In a statement refuting complaints at the way ENRC is run, Mr Mashkevich, who owns 15pc of the company, said people had got "the wrong end of the stick".

Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation

"I am still struggling to master the English idiom, but there seldom has been an occasion when so many commentators got the wrong end of the stick," he wrote.

His comments followed a cutting valedictory letter published last week by Ken Olisa, one of two ENRC directors voted off the company's board, who said the move was "more Soviet than City".

Responding to the accusation, Mr Mashkevich said he had grown up in the Soviet Union and was "well acquainted with its ways".

"Let me assure Mr Olisa that a situation in which very highly paid directors cling to their positions as [a] right has more in common with Soviet practices than one which provides for democratic accountability," he wrote.

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Mr Olisa, head of technology merchant bank Restoration Partners, and Sir Richard Sykes, a former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, were voted off the ENRC board by more than 83pc of the shareholder votes cast.

The move has led to fears that the group's Kazakh shareholders have been trying to consolidate power over the FTSE 100 company.